


Graduation Season

by taykash



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-15
Updated: 2013-05-15
Packaged: 2017-12-11 22:35:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/804013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taykash/pseuds/taykash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sho struggles with his final exams right before he graduates Keio. Ohno helps him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Graduation Season

**Author's Note:**

> Technically this was written for [rainbowfilling](http://rainbowfilling.livejournal.com/), but really it's dedicated to Melissa. She knows why. (And if she doesn't, I'm sure she can guess.) Also posted [ here](http://taykash.livejournal.com/10613.html).

“You know,” Aiba had once said to Ohno when they were on a van, shuffling off to a Mayonaka no Arashi location shoot. Sho had originally been scheduled on it, but had canceled when he received his final exam schedule. “Sho-chan works too hard.”

Ohno had wondered why Aiba was telling him this. Ohno knew, maybe more than anyone else in the group, how hard Sho worked. He regularly texted Ohno at all hours of the night, trying to reach anyone who wasn’t just a name in a textbook. Ohno wasn’t great at being reachable by phone, but for Sho’s texts he had programmed a loud ringtone that would wake him up and allow him to send back a photo of the darkness inside his room. It wasn’t a conversation, but Ohno knew that Sho understood the implicit message: _you are not alone_.

But the Era of Keio was drawing to a close. Sho had a huge term paper and three finals sitting between him and his diploma, but as far as Ohno was concerned, Sho was done. Four years of juggling school and work, Keio and Johnny’s, his economics classmates and Arashi – Sho had grown up from an optimistic 18 year old in a too-big suit into a self-assured 21 year old who penned rap lyrics in the margins of graphs that Ohno didn’t even pretend to understand. 

But Sho still canceled all his work a month before his exams, and put in only the most required of appearances. The make-up artists slapped on concealer beneath his eyes, and in the greenroom he was either reading or asleep on the old couch Aiba had rescued from a secondhand store.

“Sho-chan works too hard,” Aiba sighed again one day as he idly flipped through the new issue of Wink Up as he leaned against the makeup counter, Sho curled up on the couch with a textbook open over his face to block out the light. Ohno was lying across a few chairs, hidden from view by the cheap table. 

“He’s almost done,” Jun replied, and Ohno thought about how Jun’s voice was deeper now than when Sho had entered Keio. He still squeaked sometimes, mostly when he forgot himself and laughed himself sick.

“Then he can stay up all night looking for moles and ghosts with us instead,” Nino snorted from his seat across the table from Ohno. “Maybe he should go to grad school.”

“Never,” Aiba yelped, reaching over to hit Nino on the head with the magazine. “If Sho-chan went to grad school, he’ll have to leave us to write all these important papers on brands we should be selling!”

“It was a joke,” Nino grumbled, slouching in his seat over his Game Boy Advance. “He’s not going to go to grad school. You don’t make money in grad school, anyway.”

Ohno kept his eyes closed, listening to their conversation. He could easily see Sho walking the halls of some university as a graduate student, waving off jokes about his rapping and discussing high-level economics with well-connected professors. Or maybe he’d become a politician like his dad, campaigning in nicely-pressed suits. Ohno would buy a VOTE FOR SAKURAI button if they made any, pin it to his bag and proudly tell anyone he knew that he knew the guy running for a representative seat.

But Ohno, above all, preferred that Sho graduated and put his academic life behind him to sing and dance and be silly on late-night TV with them. It wasn’t Arashi without Sho.

\-----  
It was a week later when Ohno was finally sliding between his cool sheets at 2 am after a brutal location shoot in the middle of Kanagawa. The spring so far had been unseasonably cold, and the wind had been brutal against his face. His mom had kept stew for him and it warmed him up, but now he was exhausted and it was time to sleep.

His phone rang his Sho ringtone loud and clear, piercing through the darkness of the room. Ohno laid there quietly, knowing he should get up and answer but every bone screaming at him to stay down.

His phone rang again. Ohno rolled out of bed. For once it wasn’t a text message, but a phone call, so Ohno laid back down with the phone pressed against his ear.

“Satoshi?” Sho asked quietly. His voice was rough and a little hoarse. 

Ohno made a noise in response and thought about how Sho should drink some tea to soothe his throat.

“Satoshi, I…” Ohno listened to the sound of shuffling papers, then Sho’s heavy sigh. “I’m almost done, but getting there is really, really hard.”

Ohno closed his eyes.

“This paper is taking more time than I thought it would, and I haven’t even _looked_ at my materials for my exams. What if I don’t graduate?” Ohno pictured Sho sitting at his desk, his head in his hands.

Ohno cleared his throat. “You will, Sho-chan.” He knew he sounded sleepy-soft, and he shifted in bed, gathering his quilt between his knees.

“I have to. I can’t…” Sho laughed and Ohno pretended he didn’t hear the bitterness in it. “Can you imagine? The first idol to fail out of school. I’d have to go into hiding.”

“I’d go with you,” Ohno replied loyally, drifting off slowly into sleep. “We can hide in Okinawa and pick acerola.” 

“I don’t think my parents would prefer acerola farmer to Johnny’s idol,” Sho snorted, but Ohno could hear the smile on his face. It was nice to imagine Sho smiling, something he hadn’t done much lately, and it warmed Ohno just as much as his mother’s stew. 

“My parents wouldn’t mind, I think. It’d be warm all year and we’d have free berries. We’d be by the beach and we could go swimming…fruit would be cheaper…we could hit watermelons every week if we wanted.” Ohno could hear his own voice slowing down as he fell asleep on the phone, mentally already lying in the Okinawan sunlight.

“Good night, Satoshi,” Sho said quietly. Ohno was already asleep when Sho hung up.

\-----

Sho managed to graduate and Aiba threw a completely ridiculous dinner party for him on TV, complete with too-big, mostly inedible food. They had a quieter dinner party among themselves at Sho’s favorite shabu-shabu place where they all drank too much beer and ate too much food. Nino left first, citing the long trip back to his mom’s house, then Jun and Aiba left because of an early photoshoot for Potato. Ohno paid the bill without complaining, and they stepped out into the night, Sho’s arm tight around Ohno’s waist.

“Satoshi,” Sho slurred as they slowly made their drunken way to the train station. “Satoshi.”

“Sho-chan,” Ohno replied calmly, walking steadily even as Sho leaned his full weight on him.

“Satoshi,” Sho dropped his head on his shoulder. “You’re the best.”

Ohno made a quiet noise of acknowledgement, but Sho shook his head. “No, really, you’re the best.” He stopped in his tracks under a streetlight, and Ohno tried to memorize the way the orange light filtered through Sho’s hair.

“I don’t think I would have graduated without you.” Sho was so close Ohno could smell the beer on his breath, the remnants of cologne kissed away by the passage of time.

“You would have,” Ohno replied, Sho’s grip on him so tight he couldn’t move even if he wanted to. He watched Sho lean in until Sho’s mouth was clumsily on his, and Sho’s so drunk their teeth crashed together but Ohno didn’t mind. Sho tasted like beer and shabu-shabu but Ohno felt like he couldn't get enough of him anyway.

“We would have moved to Okinawa,” Sho mumbled against Ohno’s mouth, and their noses bump together.

“We missed the train,” Ohno replied, not moving away from Sho even though the pressure Sho’s applying hurts a little.

“We can pick acerola,” Sho said, and his lashes flutter against Ohno’s cheek.

\-----

Ohno woke up in a cheap hotel room that he only vaguely remembered stumbling into. He could hear Sho singing old Namie Amuro songs in the shower.

On the bedside table sat a cold bottle of acerola juice. Ohno curled up under the ugly comforter, digging his toes into the mattress, and smiled.


End file.
